New UK visa norms to help Indian professionals

Ishani Duttagupta, ET BureauMar 28, 2010, 03.18am IST

NEW DELHI: The recent changes announced by the UK government to the Tier-I and Tier-II—highly skilled and skilled migrant—visa categories will benefit some sections of professionals from India. "The points-based system, which is reviewed from time to time by the migration advisory committee, gives us the flexibility to revise the criterion to get people with the required skills into UK's labour market," Chris Dix, regional director , South Asia and the Gulf, UK Border Agency (UKBA), told ET.

The changes, which will become effective from April 6, will reintroduce the bachelors degree as a points-scoring criterion for Tier-I and will also allow people with no formal academic qualifications to apply under the category if they earn over £1,50,000 annually.

While both these steps will help increase the available skills pool under Tier-I , the differentiated points for sponsorship under the Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) categories for Tier-II is being welcomed by most companies in India who need to transfer staff members to the UK.

Tier-II is being split into three sub-categoriesestablished staff with a minimum of 12 months experience in the company to fill posts that cannot be filled by a resident worker; graduate trainee for new graduates with a minimum of 3 months experience with the company to come to the UK for structured training for up to 12 months and skills transfer for new employees with no previous company experience who are coming to UK solely for reasons of skills transfer for a maximum stay of 6 months.

"India is a very important country for us for both Tier-I and Tier-II categories. The changes are aimed at scouting for the best available skills without adversely impacting the labour market in the UK. For the Tier-II changes, we had consulted with companies in UK and India as well, before making the decisions," Mr Dix said. While Indians form the largest number of work permit holders under Tier-II globally , there were 5,200 Tier-I visas issued in India last year, up from 3,000 the previous year.

Meanwhile, the temporary suspension of Tier-IV student visa operations in North India has been partially lifted with applicants under foundation degree or above courses being allowed to put in their applications. Others applying from North India still need to go to Chennai or Mumbai centres to put in their papers. "We are working on streamlining the Tier-IV visas and will soon be introducing a highly trusted sponsor scheme for institutions in UK. We are also putting in place a new English language testing scheme for student visa applicants," Mr Dix said. Around 57,000 student visas were issued for UK from India last year.